August 6, 2009 12:37 PM | 1 CommentA 15-year-old boy was shot in the neck after a man involved in fender-bender with another driver brandished a handgun and began shooting on an Englewood street, police said.

The boy was a bystander and did not know either of the drivers, who got into an argument at about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday on the 6900 block of South Throop, said Chicago Police Officer JoAnn Taylor.A blue Oldsmobile and a red Pontiac were involved in the minor accident. The drivers, both men, jumped out of the vehicles and began arguing, Taylor said. The man driving the Oldsmobile brandished a handgun and began shooting "blindly," Taylor said.

" had nothing to do with the accident,'' said Taylor.

The boy was listed in serious condition earlier today at the University of Chicago Comer Children's Hospital, Taylor said.

Police were looking for an African-American man in his 20s about 5-foot-8 to 5-foot-10, weighing between 150 to 170 pounds, Taylor said. No one was in custody, Taylor said.

34. We can't stop importation of heroin. What makes you think we could stop guns?

And guns can be manufactured domestically with ease, heroin can't. You really should read the history of prohibition. The fact of the matter is that as long as there is a demand, there will be a supply. That's been amply proven in countries like England, where they still have guns despite their being banned, they're just now all illegally held. Worse yet, you cultivate an illegal black market that criminalizes anyone who wants or needs a firearm, INCREASING the illegal demand instead of decreasing it.

Banning guns is like trying to treat a cold by blowing your nose more often--it's just a symptom, not the problem itself.

I say we get rid of the automobiles, car wrecks kill 4 times more people than firearms. If there were no cars then this shooting would never have happened in the first place.

I already know the argument. If we didn't have guns in this country than this situation would have never occurred. Obviously this was a case of road rage, not some demented hothead out looking for a kill. Had the shooter been a law abiding citizen he would not have had the firearm in the first place. Obviously he was a criminal, carrying where he should not have been. Maybe not convicted, but one none the less.

Work on the laws already in place. If you can't get them to work how on earth are you going to get new ones to work? Stricter punishment is the answer not taking away law abiding citizens rights. Make it so the crime is not worth the punishment. I bet that if the penalty for a convicted felon caught with a firearm in their possession was losing their right index finger, there would be far less criminals possessing firearms. Oh shit i'm sorry that would be inhumane treatment of a CRIMINAL. Give me a fucking break.

Don't do the crime if you can't do the time. Whoever came up with that line is a twit. Do up to 10 years for possession but get out on parole in two. If your sentenced to 10 years you do 10 years. What is the problem? Oh but if it is your first offense you might only get probation.

Wake up people. It is not the firearms that are killing, it is the dumb ass people that are using them.

The Police/Government, by virtue of their manpower, equipment, training and legal precedent CAN NOT protect me if a criminal decides to make me their victim. I am responsible for my own well-being. Unless you are offering to ensure my physical security at all times, all your bluster and lies are meaningless noise. When you then threaten to deny me effective means of defending myself, you become a threat to my physical safety. Despite our most recent Supreme Court nominee's mumbled obfuscations, self defense is a RIGHT. I dare say it is a duty and obligation. It is written into our genetic code. I can think of no species that does not have some natural, reflexive effort to defend itself when attacked.

I am not sure at this moment how to make this any clearer. It's been explained to you ad nauseum. I'll keep thinking and trying, but right now, I need to get brunch going.

The Police/Government, by virtue of their manpower, equipment, training and legal precedent CAN NOT protect me if a criminal decides to make me their victim.

How could the state possibly prohibit you from digging a moat around your property and stocking it with crocodiles or filling it with acid?

After all, the state does not guarantee your safety from intruders, so you gotta do it yourself. Better to head them off at the pass than hope to be awake and clutching your implement when they try to steal your stereo.

I dare say it is a duty and obligation. It is written into our genetic code. I can think of no species that does not have some natural, reflexive effort to defend itself when attacked.

Obviously, the guns they have were born illegal. Nobody who can actually be expected to follow the law ever owned those guns. Those guns never made their way from the hands of somebody who can be expected to follow the law to the hands of criminals.

those were the number officially reported. 37 died from gunshot wounds. most of the school age children in chicago know of someone who has been shot or shot at,experience shootings on their way to school,and hear gunshots in their neighborhood at night.

Well, at least this isn't just one of those gang- and drug-related firearm homicides ... where the murderer just happens to kill someone not related to gangs or drugs. We all know about them -- gangs killing somebody? Nothing to worry about. It's just those people doing bad things with guns. Bad people will always have guns. Nothing can be done about it.

Same story here though. Too bad, so sad, another sacrifice you have to make for your freedumb. A kid's life. Them's the breaks.

Shot 9 times and survived, victim's trauma never endsRICHARD LAUTENS/TORONTO STARLeonard Bell, 48, says he is still haunted by the 2004 drive-by shooting. The Toronto contractor was mistaken for someone else when gang members opened fire. This week the shooters were sentenced to life in prison. (July 30, 2009)

Leonard Bell was in a car when the Galloway Boys opened fire. He had to endure the 'stigma' of being tied to gang violence

"You people are always killing each other."

Leonard Bell could not believe what he had just heard.

The person making the comment to him was a physician at a Scarborough hospital where Bell had gone to discuss surgery related to the nine gunshot wounds he had received in a drive-by shooting.

"I was too angry to respond, so I got up and walked out," Bell said in an interview this week. "In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, 'You racist fool.'"

... Charlton, who had stopped for a red light on Neilson Rd. at Finch Ave. E., tried to flee when gunmen sprayed his Neon with bullets. But he collapsed and died on the median. Bell, who managed to pull the emergency brake after the car rolled into the intersection, was taken to hospital where he underwent surgery.

I could name you a half-dozen other well-known cases in Canada where the victim of a firearm homicide was a bystander (two kids, off the top of my head) or someone mistaken for someone else. Or just a random victim of neighbourhood intimidation tactics.

You'd have to work very hard to persuade me that such incidents are not common in the US. Hell, kids shot through windows and walls of their buildings and killed in their beds are easy to find.

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